When the last buffalo disappeared from the wide-open ranges of the American west in the late 1870’s and early 80’s, the U. S. government took on the responsibility of providing Indian tribes with herds of cattle to supplement their loss. Most of the cattle came out of the state of Texas, and early in the spring of 1882, a teenager named Thomas Moore joined one of these cattle drives on the recommendation of his two older brothers. The cattle had been gathered up from several large ranches from the interior of Old Mexico and were contracted for a fall delivery at the Blackfoot Reservation in Northwestern Montana. In ‘The Log Of A Cowboy’ young Tom Moore vividly describes a vanishing lifestyle that passed quickly once barbed wire began to stretch across the vast open ranges that had existed for eons before the coming of the white man.
The owner of the cattle outfit had a number of deals going with the Indian Department, and was granted the privilege of bringing any cattle across the border at the mouth of the Rio Grande duty free, as long as they were used in filling out the Indian contract. Tom Moore left his family for the first time to take part in the long cattle drive to Montana, and he says that they were all standing at the gate when he climbed into his saddle and rode away with a lump in his throat. The young cowboy stated in his reminiscences that “The Rio Grande was two hundred yards wide at this point and was almost swimming from bank to bank. When the cattle should reach the river on the Mexican side we were honor bound to accept everything bearing the Circle Dot brand on the left hip.” The contract called for a thousand cows, three and four years of age, and two thousand steers, four or five years old, which was estimated to fill a million-pound beef contract. The foreman accepted fifty extra from each category, which brought the total to thirty-one hundred head!
On the morning after going into camp, Tom says that the cowboys chose their mounts for the trip from the remuda of horses supplied by the owner of the outfit. The foreman had the first choice, and he picked a dozen broncos that seemed to fit his needs. “When it came the boys turn to cut, we were only allowed to cut one at a time by turns, even casting lots for the first choice. We had ridden the horses enough to have a fair idea as to their merits, and every lad was his own judge. It was my good fortune that morning to get a good mount of horses.” Each cowboy was allowed to choose ten horses and each was expected to furnish his own accoutrements. “In saddles, we had the ordinary Texas make, the housings of which covered our mounts from withers to hips, and were bedecked with the latest in the way of trimmings and trappings. The indispensable slicker, a greatcoat of oiled canvas, was ever at hand and spurs were a matter of choice. In the matter of leggings, not over half of our outfit had any, as a trail herd always kept in the open, and except for night herding they were too warm in summer.”
The herd was brought up to the river’s edge by a corporal with about thirty vaqueros, and the foreman of the Texas outfit carefully picked out the cattle that he felt were strong enough to make the long journey to Montana. Tom Moore says that they were all “long-legged, long-horned Southern cattle, pale colored as a rule.” And he thought it was the first time that a herd had crossed over from Old Mexico that was intended for the trail, or for beyond the boundary of Texas. Both outfits joined in to drive the huge herd across the river and our cowboy journalist says, “Every hoof was over in less than two hours. On the last trip, in which there were about seven hundred head, the horse of one of the Mexican vaqueros took cramps about the middle of the river, and sank without a moments notice. A number of us heard the man’s terrified cry, only in time to see the horse and rider sink. Every man within reach turned to the rescue, and a moment later the man rose to the surface.” One of the Texans caught him by his shirt and handed him over to one of the vaqueros, who towed him back to the Mexican side of the river. Luckily, the rider was saved, but the horse with the cramps never came back up to the surface.
Once the cattle were safely across the river, the only thing left to do was to make a final tally of the herd. The Mexican corporal came over with two vaqueros, and the foreman of the American outfit picked out a couple of experienced hands to help him with his count. There was also a representative from the U. S. Customs House who made his own count “as a matter of form in the entry papers.” The American foreman used a tally string tied to the pommel of his saddle, on which were ten knots, keeping count by slipping a knot at each even hundred. The Mexican used ten small pebbles, shifting a pebble from one hand to the other on the hundred. When the count ended only two of the men agreed on numbers. One of the seasoned Texans had come up with the same total as the Mexican corporal, so the final tally was settled at thirty-one hundred and five!
Besides the thirty-one hundred cows, the company also had a remuda of one hundred and forty two horses, ten per man and an even dozen for the foreman. Four mules, which were driven by the outfit’s cook, pulled the chuck wagon. At night the horses were allowed to graze without being hobbled, under the watchful eye of the horse wrangler and a change of night watchmen that shifted every two hours throughout the night. It was later noticed that a few of the horses were inclined to stray in the night and these troublemakers were eventually hobbled or put into a rope corral at night. Every man other than the foreman, cook, and horse wrangler was assigned a nightshift to watch the herd of cattle throughout the entire journey. The troupe made twenty five to thirty miles a day, and figured that an average of fifteen miles a day would get them to the Blackfoot Agency by the 10th of September, which was the deadline for their delivery. On the way to Montana they faced every imaginable obstacle, from cattle rustlers to stampedes and flooded rivers, and as the year progressed they traveled across vast stretches of parched waterless prairies and faced temperature extremes that were literally unheard of in the Lone Star State.
One of the favorite pastimes of cowboys along the trail was gathering around the campfire and telling the kinds of stories that were sure to pull in an innocent young cowpoke who was perhaps a bit naïve and still a little wet behind the ears. Every outfit had at least one of these tellers of tall tales and Tom Moore says that “After the labors of the day are over, the men gather around the fire, and the social hour of the day may run from the sublime to the ridiculous, from a true incident to a base fabrication.” Yarn followed yarn, and a good storyteller would fill his accounts with a number of meaty personal experiences, but sometimes where he thought they would pass muster, they were often inclined to over-color their statements. One night, as the cowboys gathered around the fire, one of the old hands was recounting his days as a bull-whacker with a freighting outfit. His story went into the minutest details about the freighters and all of the intricate “ins and outs” of their business, until he finally saw that he had the full attention of his audience, and then he ever so cleverly began to slowly reel in certain members of his unsuspecting audience.
It seems that one night this freighter’s ox had wandered off, leaving him with just a single ox to pull the wagon. The other freighters helped the unfortunate storyteller make a thorough search of the surrounding country but they still couldn’t see hide ‘nor hair of him. Luckily, all of the wagons were empty and on their way to a lucrative job that would pay twice the normal rate. Even though the ground was hard and should have made for an easy pull, the single ox-drawn wagon just couldn’t keep up with the others and the bullwhacker said that it bogged down as if it were fully loaded, rather than empty! By the end of the day our old bullwhacker was completely frustrated with falling behind the other wagons, and he decided to give it a rest. When he pulled back the curtain of the covered wagon to reach for his bedroll, who do you think he saw curled up in the back of the wagon? Yep, it was none other than the missing bull ox, who was just sleeping away with his head snuggled up on the bedroll, which he had been using as a makeshift pillow! Apparently he had been there the whole time, casually preferring a nice leisurely ride instead of pulling his own fair share of the empty freight wagon!
At this point most of the cowboys listening to the story got up with a snort of derision for the storyteller, and perhaps for their own foolishness in listening to him as long as they did! Then, to add insult to injury the wise old bull-whacker finished up by declaring to any wary disbelievers who were still hanging around the fire, “That same ox on the next trip, one night when we had the wagons parked into a corral, got away from the herder, tip-toed over the men’s beds in the gate, stood on his hind legs long enough to eat four fifty-pound sacks of flour out of the rear end of a wagon, got down on his side, and wormed his way under the wagon back into the herd, without being detected or waking a man.” Next month the saga continues with more tales from the trail between Texas and Montana.
